Field
This invention pertains to process and apparatus for producing various liquid products from a substance by heat treatment, and particularly to process and apparatus involving education of constituents of a substance, as liquids, by heat treatment and gravity separation.
State of the Art
Decompostion products are customarily obtained from various hydrocarbonaceous substances, such as coal, oil-bearing shales, petroleum, etc., by a process of distillation, involving the heating of the substance to at least the boiling points of the respective products desired, whereupon they are removed in the form of vapors and gses. Following their removal, the vapors and gases are subjected to condensation procedures.
In my U.S. Pat. No. 2,809,154, process and apparatus are disclosed for heating a substance to temperatures no greater than will result in the release of recoverable constituents from the material in the form of liquids, rather than vapors, the liquids being removed from the substance by the force of gravity. This patented process has effected considerable savings in heat compared with customary distillation processes, but, in accordance with the present invention, has been found to be susceptible to significant and surprising improvement by reason of maintaining certain parameters critical to the obtaining of improved results in terms of still greater saving in processing heat required and greatly improved yields of useful, liquid products.